where the Word comes to life

Ready To Go

I’m sending this note from a motel room on the edge of Morton, IL, having just completed attendance at a “small town” pastor’s conference. There are just over two hours until check-out time. The bags are half-packed. The car, only half-ready to go. It won’t take the entire two hours to get packed – more like two minutes, actually. So I have time to get this article off of my “to do” list.

It’s odd, living from a suitcase. You only have the most essential items; the things you purposefully selected for your trip. Many other things were considered not important enough for the trip, and then there were the odd thing or two that you didn’t consider important enough until after you realized it was left behind. (Thank God for Wal Mart, eh?)

The theme of this conference was “Ordinary Pastor; Extraordinary God.” No one disputed that premise, although one fellow compared we pastors with donkeys, which seems somewhat less than ordinary, if you ask me. The key to the theme was something similar to what Peter wrote: “When I am weak, then He is strong.”

One feels pretty weak living out of a motel room. Who ARE these people outside my door who let their children scream and run wildly down the hallway? What are those strange sounds, all night long, from the room below? Are those noises coming from the cooling system, or are the people beside us constructing some strange form of alien technology? Perhaps that odd acting fellow in the elevator yesterday wasn’t actually a Fed-Ex driver from Eastern Europe, after all! Who knows? Well… God does, actually.

The “up-side” to living this way is that on a “moments notice” I’m ready to go. (Actually, a little longer than that, please. The bags are still only half-packed.) But, shifting from the literal to the spiritual, now; that’s actually how we all should live our lives. If the trumpet should sound this moment, we should be ready to go. Christians used to say they were only “travelers here, passing through,” because they knew to “pack lightly,” as it were. Only the essentials, please. Neither space enough nor time sufficient to waste on non-essentials. Spiritually speaking, it’s best to travel light.

So, how about you? Are you finding yourself overwhelmed or overburdened by life’s non-essentials? What is there, if anything, that you might “unpack” in order to travel more lightly? Are you ready to go at “the last trumpet’s call”? Remember the story of the “foolish bridesmaids” who were not ready when the cry went out? Let us make certain that we are counted among the wise and not the foolish who wait for our Lord’s return. Let us make ready now, while there remains time.

Speaking of time, it’s time for me to shower and pack. Nearly time to head out.